The Worst Offensive Game in NFL History

In the 2001 season, we got a QB matchup featuring Chris Weinke vs Vinny Testaverde. It granted us offensive ineptitude like we'd never seen before.

Welcome back to my Sports Passion Project, where you would not believe how long I’ve wanted to talk about this game.

This game got onto my radar while I was in the research process for writing about that wild Texans vs Jaguars game in 2012. If you haven’t read it, I won’t spoil it too much here, but the final statement about that game is that the Jaguars’ offence did more than anybody else in the history of the league to help themselves win, in a game that they did not win.

This got me thinking about the opposite. What is the least help a winning team ever got from their offence?

It’s not very difficult to go on NFLFastR and look up the answer to this question. I was planning to write it up the very next week. That would’ve been in December, but then I got on a roll towards finishing the Trent Green series (which is still not done, my apologies), and then the 20th anniversary of The Night Courage Wore Orange came up, and then the playoffs began, so I wanted to talk about playoff topics.

All of that is what leads to an article that I planned to write in the beginning of December instead coming out past the midpoint in February. Such is life sometimes. My eye got drawn to other things, but it’s back here now, and it’s back to where my heart has always been.

This is an article that’s going to stress the ‘Passion’ in my Sports Passion Project. Nobody is going to read this, and I understand and accept that. It’s very much designed to entertain primarily myself, because this is the kind of football I cannot help but love to watch. It’s pure comedy, as both teams just cannot get out of their own way. It features bad coaching, bad play calling, bad execution from both sides, and in the end, produces the worst offensive performance in the era of accurate measurement.

For all of this fun, we have to go back to October 28, 2001, at Ericsson Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a week eight matchup between the hosting Carolina Panthers, and the visiting New York Jets.

Let me set the scene for you.

As of the 2001 season, the Carolina Panthers are still a relatively new conception, having come into the league in 1995. There was some early success, with the Panthers making it as far as the NFC Championship game in 1996, but this team is largely the younger brother of the 1995 expansion, well behind the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have made the playoffs four times, won four playoff games, and had a 14-2 season in 1999, all while the Carolina Panthers have been able to finish above .500 just once.

This was not good enough, so in 1999 the Panthers fired original head coach Dom Capers to bring in a man who was marked for the Hall of Fame. Multiple time Super Bowl champion head coach (with the SF 49ers) George Seifert was brought in, in an attempt to make things better. George’s coaching tenure in Carolina tends to be remembered as an unmitigated disaster, but I think that’s slightly unfair. It does become an unmitigated disaster, but it didn’t start that way.

He did make things better when he got there, making the choice to elevate Steve Beuerlein to starting QB, who gave the Panthers what remains the best QB season they’ve ever had in 1999, with the help of breakout WR Muhsin Muhammad, whom the team drafted in the second round all the way back in 1996. This gave the Panthers a fantastic offence, with very bad defence being the only thing holding them an 8-8 record that year.

In 2000, it was much of the same, with the defence improving slightly, but the offence regressing slightly, to land themselves in a similar position, 7-9 in the 2000 NFC. Then, in one of the oddest moves I’ve ever seen, the Carolina Panthers elect to cut Steve Beuerlein in the 2001 offseason, getting rid of the best QB the franchise had ever had, and just not replacing him.

Beyond Michael Vick (who went first overall in the 2001 Draft, out of reach for the Panthers), there were no QBs worth drafting in the first round, and the Panthers elected not to sign any free agent QBs either. There were good QBs available in the 2001 offseason. The KC Chiefs traded the 14th overall pick for Trent Green. That’s lower than the Panthers were selecting. Trent could’ve been available.

Even if not Trent, Super Bowl champion Brad Johnson was out there. Chris Chandler was an option. Matt Hasselbeck was an option. Jon Kitna was available. Hell, before the 2001 season started, the Panthers probably could’ve called the Patriots to offer a sixth round draft choice for Tom Brady, and they likely would’ve taken it.

That’s not realistic of course, but the first five names I mentioned were realistic, as was just not cutting the best QB the franchise had ever had. It’s not talked about very often, but the Carolina Panthers cutting Steve Beuerlein, and replacing him with nothing, is one of the most blatant tanks in the history of the NFL, and what makes this even more ridiculous is that the Panthers are not even going to get the first overall pick in the 2002 Draft.

The Houston Texans are coming into the league in the 2002 offseason, and they will have the first pick, no matter how bad the 2001 Carolina Panthers are, and with a QB room of Chris Weinke, Matt Lytle, and Dameyune Craig, in conjunction with star WR Muhsin Muhammad missing most of the season due to injury, they will be extremely bad.

If you’re looking for a one step plan to turn a fringe playoff contender into one of the worst teams in NFL history, the 2001 Panthers’ offseason is a great example to follow. Why did they do this in the one season where it was a guarantee that they would not be picking first?

Your guess is as good as mine, but this blatant tank job paints a clear picture of why the 2001 Panthers are one half of the worst combined performance between two offences in the history of the league. Through their first six games of the season coming into this one, they have scored just 100 points (16.67 per game), generated -0.101 EPA/Play (29th), and won just once, coming into this one with a 1-5 record.

Unlike the Panthers, the New York Jets are on the way up in 2001.

After their otherworldly 1998 season, where they won 12 games and missed the Super Bowl only due to fumbling the ball four times (and the Broncos recovering all four) in the AFC Championship Game, the Jets immediately fell off in 1999 due to an injury to starting QB Vinny Testaverde that kept him out most of the year. 1999 was the last season of Bill Parcells in New York, and after one season of Al Groh in 2000, it all of a sudden had been two seasons since the Jets had been to the playoffs.

This is where they make a decision that will be crucial to their franchise moving forward.

They hire Herman Edwards to be their head coach.

Listen guys. We all know my opinions on Herman Edwards. For whatever reason, he seems to come up on this publication a lot. I’ve discussed at length in this article (talking about Chad Pennington and the 2002 Jets), and this article (talking about Chad Pennington and the 2003 Jets), and this article (talking about Damon Huard and the 2006 Chiefs), and this article, and this article (both talking about how Trent Green and Herm did not fit very well together) my problems with the offensive style that comes with having Herman Edwards as your football coach, so I won’t go into extreme detail here.

In short, it’s not just low risk but no risk, and the offence will be playing not to lose at all times, almost never playing to win. That’s the Herm Edwards coaching philosophy. The problem is that this doesn’t work with elite talent very well. Even with the best QB in the NFL (2002 Chad Pennington) the Jets still did not have a top five offence. Same with Trent Green and Larry Johnson in 2006. There are other examples.

The 2001 Jets are another good one. They have Vinny Testaverde, Wayne Chrebet (who have both been stars in the past), Curtis Martin (who is a star currently), as well as Laveranues Coles, and Santana Moss (who are both going to be stars in the future). Despite this collection of talent (quite rare for a Jets roster), they’re going to finish this season with just the 15th ranked offence, for (in my opinion) Herman Edwards reasons.

In their first six games of the year, the Jets have scored 128 points (21.33 per game). This is much better than Carolina, but not good enough to set anybody’s pants on fire, not even in 2001. To put it succinctly, this is just an okay offence. It’s an okay offence with a lot of talent on it, but one that consistently gets middling results and nothing more.

Still though, this is not a team that should be a part of the worst offensive game in NFL history. For them to be here, something serious has to have gone wrong. On the first drive of the game, something very clearly does, and it’s going to be representative of how this entire day goes for the Jets’ offence.

They spend their first drive not having very much trouble cutting through a Carolina Panther defence that’s been the weakness of the team for several years now, and is going to finish just 24th in 2001, getting all the way down inside the ten yard line while seeing just one third down. After an unproductive rush on first down, that leaves the Jets looking at second and nine from the ten.

This is where the fun begins.

Vinny Testaverde swings a pass out to the flat, where it’s caught by Richie Anderson, but he fumbles the football, leaving it sitting on the six yard line for what feels like an eternity, just waiting for anybody to get over to it. In the end, it’s CB Rashard Anderson who gets to the ball first.

Rashard was a first round pick back in 2000 of the Panthers, in an effort to bolster their struggling pass defence, but he will start just nine games in his NFL career. This is one of them, and as the only man on the entire left side of the field, all he has to do is win a race to the end zone against 38 year old Vinny Testaverde. It’s a 94 yard touchdown return, the only TD in the career of Rashard Anderson, and a 7-0 Panthers lead.

Oops.

Did I say 7-0?

I told you neither of these teams were going to be able to do anything right today. John Kasay doinks the extra point kick off the right upright, missing the kick back in the days when it used to be a 96.9% proposition. It’s only a 6-0 deficit for the Jets, but you’ve just seen one of the worst offensive plays of the 2001 season.

On second and nine from the ten yard line, the Jets were in a great spot to get the game started with some points. They were expected to score 4.24 of them. Instead, Richie Anderson fumbled the football, and the opposing team scored a touchdown. That’s a total EPA of -11.24 on one play.

By far the biggest contribution to the Jets’ offensive woes on this day has happened already.

-11.24 EPA is a bad score for a whole game. On just one play, it’s extremely rare. Most seasons will not have ten individual plays this bad, out of a sample that is normally (in the 31 team era) about 44000 offensive plays. In this 2001 season, unique in its quantity of extraordinarily bad offensive plays, this is the only the 13th worst offensive play out of the sample of 44438. This is still so bad it’s almost unimaginable. It’s in the 0.0003rd percentile of all plays in 2001. Combine this with the missed extra point kick (at the 2001 distance), and you get one of the unlikeliest sequences of events in NFL history, that nets the Panthers a 6-0 lead before their offence ever touches the field, exactly what a team needs when they’re starting Chris Weinke at QB.

Sorry Chris. Your name is going to get dragged through the mud a lot today.

What a way to get it started.

If you know Herm Edwards like I’ve gotten to know Herm Edwards, you would expect the Jets’ next offensive drive to be an exercise in calming the game down after such an unmitigated disaster of a first offensive series, but to his credit, it’s not. Of the six plays on the drive, four of them are throws. The first play goes straight back to Richie Anderson, showing the player that his coach still has faith in him, and on third down there’s a beautiful 26 yard ball to Laveranues Coles, all of this without Curtis Martin touching the ball yet.

Very not Herman Edwards-like.

Facing first and ten from the Carolina 39 yard line, it once again does not feel like the Jets are going to be one half of the worst combined offensive performance I’ve ever seen, but once again in the key moment they find a way to screw it up. This time in typical Herm Edwards fashion.

They fold into a shell for no reason at all.

If you follow my Trent Green series, you’ll know this is a problem that Herm Edwards coached teams have. They get extremely conservative at times where it doesn’t make any sense to do so. First and ten on the opponents’ side of the 50 is not exactly a dangerous situation, so does somebody want to explain to me why the three plays are an incompletion into the flat, a completion into the flat, a give-up handoff between the tackles on third and eight, and then a punt from the 36?

That’s 2.80 more expected points that the Jets have just thrown away, and their -7.14 total EPA as a team in just the first ten minutes is putting this in the running for the worst team offensive quarter in NFL history. Thankfully for New York, they do not touch the ball again until the second quarter starts, so this first quarter doesn’t quite reach that lofty benchmark, but it puts this Jets team on a great pace to have one of the worst offensive games ever.

From here, we have to shift perspective. At last we get to see the Carolina Panthers touch the football, and I have to spoil for you that the Panther rushing attack is going to be by far their best source of offence today. They’re going to rush 21 times for 92 yards in total, and generate -0.258 EPA/Play in this game.

Wait a minute.

I hear what you’re saying. You’re saying to yourself ‘those numbers are awful,’ and you’re correct about that. This is a very bad day for the Carolina rushing offence, one of their worst of the year. It gets even worse when I tell you that the Panthers’ first two offensive plays of this game are both very productive Richard Huntley handoffs. Two rushes for 13 yards and 0.701 total EPA between them.

That means for the rest of this game, the Panthers are going to get 19 carries for 79 yards from their backs, good for -0.322 EPA/Rush. This is an offence that would carry Jake Delhomme to the Super Bowl game in just two years’ time, but All-Pro Muhsin Muhammad is injured and far less than his best self. All-Pro Steve Smith is injured and not even playing, and Chris Weinke is no Jake Delhomme, as faint of praise as that is.

It’s going to be a long day.

After those two carries get the Panthers off their own goal line, we actually get to see some productive offence, as the next two plays are a completed pass, and a handoff for one yard, to bring up third and five. On this third down, Chris Weinke completes a six yard pass to Donald Hayes, for another first down!

Exclamation mark!

Did you see all that offence that just happened?

Perhaps it’s a good illustration of what we’re in for that I can say with honesty that this third down pass for six yards is Chris Weinke’s second most productive touch of the entire game. There is one more play that I will get to later, but it’s not going to get any better than this for the Panthers today. We’re on our own 26 yard line, and it’s all downhill from here.

The next three plays are all incompletions, but at least the Panthers got off their own goal line, giving Todd Sauerbrun plenty of space to punt the ball. However, Carolina just cannot get out of their own way. It looks like not just one but several assignments are missed in punt protection, as Jamie Henderson comes through the line completely unabated while multiple Panthers are stood blocking nobody.

He doesn’t even have to dive. Jamie almost was close enough to just tackle Todd Sauerbrun, like this was a Madden game. Nevertheless, he blocks the punt with palms (not fingertips), sending the ball back into the end zone, where the Jets recover. They actually make their extra point, so despite one of the worst quarters of offence in the history of the league, they take a 7-6 lead.

That’s the kind of game this is.

I’m sure when many of you saw the title of this article you were thinking of a game that ended 3-0. There have been plenty of those. I’m going to spoil now that both teams score double digit points in this game.

How can this be the worst offensive game ever when there have been so many 3-0 games?

The answer is simple. There are two ways to be bad at offence. You can either not score yourself, or you can assist your opponent to score on you. A team simply not being able to score does not present a good enough case for being the worst offensive game ever when there is one like this, where now both teams cannot score, and have allowed their opponent to score without having to touch the ball.

Failing to move the ball at all is obviously less costly than failing to move it and turning the ball over. That is why the very worst offensive games often feature both sides scoring plenty of points. They also often feature wild swings in estimated win probability, because the model tends to go wild in games that are so close throughout their entire duration.

For instance, when the Panthers scored to go up 6-0, NFLFastR thought that they had a 77 percent chance of winning the game. Now that they’re behind 7-6, that’s just 61%, and after two incomplete Donald Hayes targets wrapped around a second down rush followed by a Todd Sauerbrun punt that actually gets in the air this time, that estimated WP is down to 49%.

That punt also marks a merciful end to a horrifying first quarter. It was a pretty entertaining first quarter, but not if you’re strictly an aficionado of offence. If you’re here for that, it was one of the worst quarters in football history. The Jets got close to scoring a couple times, getting inside Panther territory twice, but snuffed out their own opportunity both times, and Carolina used up most of their good offence for the entire day moving from their own one out to the 26, only to get the punt blocked anyways.

It’s clear that the Carolina Panthers are not going to be able to move the ball whatsoever, meaning we’re only going to be able to rely on one side of this game for competent offence, and right when I begin thinking that, the television broadcast shows me a nice clear picture of Herman Edwards.

Oh no.

Does it surprise anybody when the Jets’ four plays are a Curtis Martin rush, a Curtis Martin reception, a Curtis Martin rush, and a Curtis Martin rush, before punting? It certainly doesn’t surprise me. The Panthers do slightly better, with their first four plays of their drive in response being a seven yard completion to get it started (another one of Chris Weinke’s best plays of this entire game), an eight yard rush, a ten yard rush, and another eight yard rush.

This actually gets Carolina into New York Jet territory. It’s looking (relatively) great for them, but this all falls apart when Muhsin Muhammad (who still has no catches and only one target) gets called for an illegal crackback block, making this first and ten into first and 25. If you think the 2001 Carolina Panthers can recover from that, I want some of what you’re smoking.

2.68 expected points down the drain. Jets’ ball.

Jets and Chiefs fans know that when Herm Edwards is your coach, it’s sometimes the worst thing in the world to have a RB get hot. After two very successful drives (albeit with bad endings) to begin this game bolstered by a lot of passing, you could convince me at this point that Herm does not even remember who Vinny Testaverde is. He’s touched the ball twice since then, with one of those times being an incompletion on third down and one that kills this drive, the one time you could argue the Jets should’ve been running.

Hello there. My name is Vinny Testaverde. I’ll be your QB this evening.

We are all the way at 7:13 of the second quarter when the Panthers get the ball again, as time has just been a blur watching both sides hand the ball off over and over and over again. At last, on the first play of their new series, Carolina gets the bright idea to try to throw the ball to Muhsin Muhammad.

You know, Muhsin Muhammad? The guy who has 2436 receiving yards over the last two years, and will be a first team All-Pro once he gets somebody who isn’t Chris Weinke throwing the ball to him? Why did it take 22 minutes for the Panthers to figure out that it may be a good idea to get him a catch? It’s only his second target.

They say George Seifert’s Carolina tenure coached himself out of the Hall of Fame, and with games like this it isn’t difficult to see why. This throw to Muhammad is only a five yard gain, but it’s something, and with a couple more productive rushes, it allows the Panthers to get another first down (just their fourth of the game). However, calling two passes in a row on a second and two and then a third and two, both of which fall incomplete, ruins yet another Carolina drive with potential. That’s 2.18 more expected points (second and two on the 49) that the Panthers have thrown away, and we’re back to the Herm Edwards show.

New York gets the ball back at 5:05 of the second, and complete no passes on their offensive touch yet again. This time it’s not for lack of trying though, as there are four pass plays called out of seven offensive plays. The two Curtis Martin rushes go for 39 yards, meanwhile all the passes go for nothing, and in a game like this I’m starting to go along with Herm a little bit. It’s clear that Vinny has been playing very badly for the last quarter or so.

I respect the Jets for trying to weave the pass game back in, but when it fails so miserably, shutting down another promising offensive situation (first and ten from the Carolina 39), I understand the reluctance to put the ball back in the air. New York is forced to punt again, flushing another 2.42 expected points down the toilet.

This gives the ball back to Carolina again, and with 2:35 left on the clock they’re going to have to try it with Chris Weinke. As we’ve all come to expect by now, this is a miserable failure, as Chris can’t complete a pass to anybody today other than Donald Hayes, and he’s double covered. It’s three plays and a punt, allowing New York a try at the two minute drill, downing the punt at their own 29 with 1:19 left to play in the half.

Tell me Herm. How do you run a two minute drill without taking any risk whatsoever?

A completion to Curtis Martin for 17 yards, an incompletion in the flat to Matthew Hatchette, a straight up run call to Curtis Martin, which gains 13. This gets us to the Carolina 41, the fifth time we’ve been in Panther territory today, and one begins to wonder how all of these passes to the flat can continue.

The Jets are swinging the ball to the outside every play, either to Curtis Martin or to some slot WR. They are not using Laveranues Coles. They are not using Wayne Chrebet, and the Carolina Panthers still cannot figure out how to defend this. They’re a bad team with a bad defence. I get it, but this is still an NFL team. They cannot allow the Jets to throw the ball to Curtis Martin on swing routes all the way down the field.

That’s what’s happening right now. It’s Herm Edwards’ world baby. We’re just living in it. For a man who is so often content to settle for no risk, no reward offence, this no risk, high reward stuff has got to be giving him good vibrations in the spine.

Now that the Jets are looking at first and ten from the 41, what exactly did you expect to happen?

Swing pass to Curtis Martin for seven yards. That’s not unexpected, but for some reason, the Jets call no timeout, despite having one to use. This is also one of the oddest sequences I’ve ever seen in a football game. The ball hits Vinny’s hands with 47 seconds in the half. He swings it out to Curtis Martin, who is tackled after a seven yard gain. New York has a timeout, but elects just not to use it, meaning the ball doesn’t hit Vinny’s hands again until there are nine seconds left in the half.

Why?

Why did this happen?

It’s not like the Jets are in FG range. This pass only moved the ball to the 33, which is outside the range of many kickers in 2001. New York allowed 30 precious seconds to disappear into the aether, just because. I cannot think of any rational explanation, because the only rational explanation I could’ve possibly thought up is immediately proven incorrect on the next play anyway.

On second and three from the 33, take a guess at what the Jets were looking to do.

Wow. They’re looking to swing the ball to the outside again? How could you have guessed?

At last, the Carolina Panthers guess it too, and Doug Evans jumps the route. It’s another turnover inside the 20 yard line, and if not for a clutch tackle by Curtis Martin, it would’ve been another touchdown return. Instead, the Panthers get the ball on the NY 27 with two seconds to go, once again proving how silly it was to run the clock all the way down, because even with all the wasted time, it didn’t even prevent something like this from happening.

Another 1.88 EPA down the tubes for New York, and Carolina sends John Kasay straight onto the field to kick a FG as time expires, somehow sending them into the locker room with a 9-7 lead after a half where Chris Weinke completed six passes.

That was not pretty.

One of the most boring two minute drills you will ever see, featuring nothing but two yard (if I’m generous) aDoT passes to Curtis Martin, capped off by the Panthers finally jumping one of them, and once again using New York’s offence as their only means of scoring points, is a fitting demonstration of how that entire first half went.

New York got over midfield five times in the first half, but in these selected possessions, they were outscored 9-0. That is ludicrous. That is absolutely ludicrous.

You don’t need me to tell you how bad the Carolina Panthers were. They got four first downs in the whole half, and spent a grand total of one play on the Jets’ side of midfield, before moving themselves back to their own side with an illegal crackback penalty.

This is the team that is winning the game.

The two teams in the first half combined to generate -19.67 total EPA. That’s -0.234 EPA/Play between both teams. It is almost impossible to see two teams both playing this badly at the same time, and I do believe this is bad offence, instead of good defence.

The Jets are going to finish the season ranked 16th in defence, and that’s including this game. The Panthers are going to finish 24th, including this game. These are not good defences. The Panthers could not stop the Jets when the ball was going to Curtis Martin in the flat four times in a row, until they finally did stop it on the fifth. To their credit, the Jets are pretty much shutting Carolina down. They are not moving anywhere on offence, but that’s not a credit to the Jets. Chris Weinke’s career completion percentage is 54.4. A lot of his passes hitting the ground is not a team or game-specific phenomenon.

These teams have basically played to a draw so far, but it’s one of the worst, most ugly draws you will ever see, triggered by two fundamentally different styles of offensive failure. The Carolina Panthers cannot move the ball, but are being saved by a New York Jet offence that is constantly throwing away good positions, and has now scored on itself multiple times.

This pattern does not stop as we move into the second half, as Carolina gets the ball first, using their possession on a negative rush and two incomplete passes. They punt the ball to the Jets, who once again use their possession to play offence on behalf of their opponents, with Vinny throwing another interception, this one on his own 37 yard line.

The Panthers get no first downs on this touch, but don’t need any. If I were talking about most games, kicking a FG on fourth and one from the 28 would be the sign of a cowardly head coach, and a bad call, but in this game I agree wholeheartedly with the FG try, and the ball sails through the uprights to give the Carolina Panthers (who have four total first downs to this point) a 12-6 lead.

That sentence is absolutely ridiculous.

The Carolina Panthers have moved the ball ten yards in three tries just four times over the 33 minutes this game has been going on, and NFLFastR gives them a 71 percent chance to win from this position, as they’ve found themselves with a five point (12-7) lead in the third quarter. That is absurd. It doesn’t make sense that a team can even have 12 points on just four first downs, and it’s even more ridiculous than that when their opponents have double digit first downs, and just seven points. It doesn’t make any sense. These types of things only happen when both offences are performing so badly that conventional wisdom begins to break down.

I just agreed with a conservative fourth down play call. What is the world coming to?

That means I have to turn my head again to look at the New York Jets, the bastions of aggression that they are, and by ‘aggressive,’ I mean that they are absolutely positively not taking any risks this time. One 24 yard Curtis Martin rush does the bulk of the work in getting them into FG range again, and this time the Jets shut the ride down. First and ten from the 25 is a premium offensive position. It comes with 3.75 expected points attached, but New York does not care. Three points is good for them, and they basically wave the white flag, keeping the ball on the ground and taking their three points to move the score to 12-10 at 7:43 of the third quarter.

Is it even crazier that I may agree with that philosophy as well?

These are our first three true offensive points of the game by the way. With every point before these three either being a defensive touchdown or a FG scored off of no offensive first downs following a turnover, these are the first real offensive points of the day, 37 and a half minutes into the game. At last the Jets are only being outscored 9-3 now on offensive possessions where they cross the 50 yard line, so that’s something right?

Right?

This score gives the Panthers the ball back again, facing first and ten on their own 14 after a poor kickoff return. Three Chris Weinke touches later and it’s fourth and ten from the 14. Another punt. Carolina runs 13 seconds off the game clock.

Did I mention that this is an offence that’s currently leading in the second half of an NFL game?

For the next four minutes or so, this game moves into a state of shock, as if unable to comprehend that a side has actually scored an offensive point. For the first time all day, the Jets go three and out as well, punting the ball back to Carolina, who go three and out themselves, punting it right back.

This is a field position war the Jets are winning, due to the poor kickoff return from earlier. When they take over possession again, they down the punt at the Carolina 49 yard line, the seventh time their offence has been over midfield this game. On this series, Laveranues Coles at last gets to touch the ball again.

You know, Laveranues Coles? The breakout WR who will become one of the best in football in short order, once Chad Pennington becomes starting QB? What a novel idea to get the ball to him. They just hand it to him, since evidently Vinny cannot be trusted to throw the ball that far, and he picks up 11 yards on the carry, getting his team to first and ten at the 38 yard line.

In this situation, Coles is given the ball again, this time on an 18 yard completion, setting the Jets up with first and ten inside the Carolina 20 yard line again, for the third time today. The first two times we’ve been down here have resulted in one of the worst offensive plays I’ve ever seen on the first drive of the game, and a total give up and acceptance of three points instead of seven on the second.

This time, those three guaranteed points will give us a 13-12 lead. Considering it’s Herm Edwards on our sideline, his no-risk attitude would generally indicate that his team would just shut it down again, accepting three points and the lead, but for whatever reason, of all the moments in this game, the Jets pick this moment as their time to get aggressive.

Air it out Vinny.

I cannot contain my laughter as the ball falls into the hands of Safety Mike Minter. Just as I was getting ready to praise Herman Edwards for finally trying to reach out and grab a victory, the Jets have turned the ball over again. Their fourth total turnover of the day, and third inside the Panthers’ 20 yard line.

I have watched this game tens of times over the years, and this moment never stops being funny to me. The Jets finally figure out that throwing the ball to Laveranues Coles is a good idea, and want to continue doing it. In so doing, they walk right into the trap of having Vinny throw into the red zone, and get burned for it again. It’s only funny because it’s the Jets, whose strategy on offence throughout most of the history of their franchise has been to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. In this game the worst happens a lot. Nothing signifies that better than this interception thrown to Mike Minter.

This one interception reduces New York’s chances of winning by 26 percent, taking them from an almost certain three points (53 percent chance to win, leading by one as the fourth quarter starts), to behind as the fourth quarter starts, without the ball, facing just a 27 percent chance to win, the lowest the Jets have seen since the first quarter.

It can turn just that quickly, and it has turned that quickly for the Jets in this game. Three times now it’s turned that quickly, and they are running out of chances, because as the Panthers touch the ball, a miracle happens.

With Minter returning the INT all the way out to the 40, it will not take much offence to get the Panthers into FG range. Does anybody think the Jets will be able to score an offensive touchdown with the way things have gone so far? If Carolina can just get a few first downs, and score their first offensive points of the day, even a five point fourth quarter lead will be almost insurmountable.

I hear you. You may be asking just how the Panthers are going to do that, having just four first downs in the whole game so far. The first two plays of this drive look no different than any other, two Richard Huntley rushes for five yards total. It’s what happens on third down that changes things.

On third down and five from his own 45, Chris Weinke drops back and puts a dime on Muhsin Muhammad. It’s a ten yard gain, and it’s by far the most productive play Chris will have all game long. I understand how sad of a statement that is, but it’s the truth, and it puts Carolina in a premium position, across midfield for just the second time all game. First and ten from the New York 45.

NFLFastR sees what’s happening. It gives Carolina a 76 percent chance to win, only needing one more first down to get into really solid FG range. This is truly panic time for the New York Jets. They haven’t had any trouble stopping them so far, but the Carolina Panthers cannot move one inch further, elsewise the Jets will more than likely lose.

Fortunately for them, the Jets are still playing against one of the worst games any QB has ever played. Both of Chris’s next two passes fall incomplete. The Jets have averted disaster, and get another chance to touch the ball behind by just two, but the problem is that they just can’t do anything with it. For some reason, it’s become the Vinny Testaverde show, as five of the six offensive play calls are drop back pass. There is one 20 yard pass to Kevin Swayne, but nothing else productive. New York has to punt again, at 11:41 of the fourth quarter, and by this time they are beginning to run out of chances.

Carolina is even able to find themselves a first down on their touch (their sixth of the day) before punting the ball away, and giving the Jets the ball back with nine minutes remaining in the game. A fantastic punt return gives New York the ball at midfield, marking the eighth time in the game the Jets have gotten across the 50 yard line, but for some reason, the Jets just wave the white flag again. Facing third and seven on the Carolina 47 with 7:55 left in the game, New York runs the ball off-tackle, and punts when faced with fourth and two on the 42.

You don’t need me to tell you that these are horrendous decisions. The decision to punt on fourth and two when behind 12-10 on the 42 against an opponent that has not even gotten close to scoring in the entire game with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter singlehandedly reduced the Jets’ chances of winning by 12 percent according to NFLFastR, one of the worst fourth down decisions of the entire play tracking era.

Perhaps given the circumstances it was somewhat correct for New York to have limited faith in their offence, and outsized faith in their defence. I get that, but this is now the eighth time the Jets have gone across the 50 yard line, and the seventh time that the Jets have walked away with zero points. What makes them think that their next chance is going to be better than this one? So far, the next one has never been better.

This is where the football Gods reach into the future to tell me to shut up, and stop coaching the teams.

After a terrific punt, pinning the Panthers on their own one yard line, for some reason, the Panthers drop Chris Weinke back into his end zone to throw. Once again, you don’t need me to tell you that this was an awful idea. With how Chris had been playing, and just a two point lead, I would never have given him the chance to mess this up, but George Seifert did, and boy did he ever mess it up.

You can say Chris had faith in his guy, but more realistically it’s just an arm punt, as he throws the ball to a blanketed Muhsin Muhammad, who might have gotten this ball on a normal day, but can’t really get off the ground on this one due to all the injuries he’s playing through. The man who comes down with the ball is Jets’ CB Aaron Glenn, who (conveniently in this circumstance) is also a full-time punt returner.

He renders the arm punt moot by returning the ball to the Carolina 21 yard line, and you better believe Herm Edwards is not giving his offence the opportunity to turn the ball over inside the Panthers’ 20 yard line for the fourth time in one day. ‘Conservative play calling’ feels like an understatement as New York runs three plays and accepts their FG, moving ahead 13-12 with five minutes remaining.

This is where in a normal game I would give the spiel about this being the moment every offensive player dreams about as a kid. Five minutes left, behind by one point, and all that jazz, but we all know how this is going to end. Let’s not kid ourselves. Chris Weinke touches the ball three times. Carolina goes backwards and punts. This gives New York the ball with 3:48 left, and to add to all the other examples of odd play calling we’ve seen in this game, the Jets drop back to pass three times in their five offensive plays, despite the fact that they theoretically should be keeping the ball on the ground to try to run the clock out.

One of these passes is a 16 yard completion to Laveranues Coles, which technically gets the Jets into Carolina territory for their tenth time of the day. They don’t score on this touch either, but crucially run the clock down to 1:12 remaining before punting the ball back to the Panthers.

Touching the ball at 1:12 down by just one point is not at all a hopeless position. If it feels like we really don’t need to be worried here, that means I’ve done a good job conveying to you the true scale of the offensive woes seen on both sides of this game. NFLFastR (which is immune to these things) still gives the Panthers a 34% chance to win from here, but we all know by now that isn’t happening.

Chris completes an 11 yard pass to get the drive going, getting the Panthers their seventh (and final) first down of the day, but takes 22 long seconds to get another snap off, and doesn’t complete another pass for the rest of the day. In technical terms, the Panthers turn the ball over on downs right before the game ends on their own 27 yard line, technically getting the Jets an eleventh chance on the Carolina side of the 50, which they of course also fail to score on, kneeling the clock out, and at last ending this game.

Wow.

It’s finally over. The Jets have won 13-12, and we have a lot to talk about.

This game is a masterclass in how to play bad offence. Actually, it’s more like a two step tutorial. Watching this game, you are taught looking at the Panthers how to score no points while being very bad at offence, and you are taught looking at the Jets how to score no points while being slightly better at offence. Let’s begin with Carolina.

For this game, the Carolina Panthers generated -0.410 EPA/Play as a team (ouch), and had just 17 successful offensive plays, in 61 tries, for an offensive success rate of 27.9 percent (extreme ouch). They spent four offensive plays in the entire game on the Jets’ side of the 50 yard line. They got just seven first downs.

A first down is not that hard to achieve folks. Even the worst teams get them more than half the time, but not these Panthers. Not today. They had as many three and outs as first downs. Seven apiece.

The main culprit for this is Chris Weinke, who completed just 12 of his 34 pass attempts, for only 76 yards through the air. These constant incomplete passes were constantly putting the Panthers behind the sticks, creating a horrendous positive feedback loop. Chris Weinke’s ineptitude kept forcing the Panthers to use Chris Weinke, which is why he dropped back to pass 37 times, despite generating -0.548 EPA/Play, and having a personal success rate even worse than the team’s (24%).

This horrifying performance on a rate basis, combined with the high usage for the circumstances, is what causes this Chris Weinke performance to be the second worst by any player in football history in terms of the relatively niche WPA (Win Probability Added) statistic, with a shocking score of -1.19.

Negative 119 percent.

When I talked about Matt Schaub and Chad Henne in December, I talked about how values above 100 percent (or below -100 percent) are possible for QBs, because players that aren’t the QBs can consistently go out and lose (or in this case gain) win probability, which the QB then has to cover for. While this is possible in either a positive or negative direction, it is much more common for a great QB to prop up a struggling defence than for a QB to let down a high flying one. There have been 62 performances of greater than 100 percent WPA in the NFL in the 25 years of the play tracking era, compared to just six performances contributing a value less than negative 100 percent.

There was no real moment where it all got away, but think of all the times where Chris got the ball with the lead, and the chance to make it bigger, but failed to do so. On the first drive of the game, already up 6-0, the Panthers got the ball with a 76 percent chance to win. They failed to score, and ended the drive with 58. Immediately afterwards, down 7-6 but with the ball, NFLFastR thought they had a 61 percent chance to win a home game against the mediocre 2001 New York Jets. Instead, they went nowhere on offence and ended the drive with a 49% chance to win.

As we know, the Panthers will never go anywhere on offence all day, so this moderate reduction in win probability due to a missed chance to extend the lead will continue to happen over and over and over again, eventually adding up to Chris Weinke’s score of -119 percent. Like I said, this is the second worst performance in the history of the league, but what makes this game unique is Chris’s counterpart.

The New York Jets were the exact opposite of the Panthers this game on offence. The results were similar, with the Jets generating -0.365 EPA/Play in their own right, but those results were achieved in an entirely different way. New York was much better than Carolina on offence in this game, getting over the 50 yard line eleven times (ten if we don’t count the kneeling at the end of the game) compared to the Panthers’ twice, running 24 successful offensive plays compared to Carolina’s 17, and actually scoring offensive points. A whole three of them, to Carolina’s none.

The Jets did win this game 13-12, but to say they didn’t deserve it would be an understatement, as despite clearly being the better offence, their average estimated win probability throughout this game was just 44 percent. They spent 32 minutes of this game trailing, all of it because of their poor execution in the moments where just one more positive offensive play could’ve netted them a score.

New York punted from inside the 50 four times. They punted from inside the 40 three additional times. They turned the ball over inside the 20 yard line on three different occasions, including one of the worst offensive plays you will ever see on the first drive of the game. All of this in in spite of a good game out of Curtis Martin, who generated approximately 0 EPA in his 27 touches, which is quite good for a RB.

The problem with this team was also the QB.

Vinny Testaverde spent this whole game taking golden chances given to him by his rush offence, and squandering them, operating at a 34 percent success rate and generating -0.326 EPA/Play himself. That’s not as bad as Chris Weinke played today, but nobody has ever played as badly as Chris Weinke played today. That bar is so low it’s literally sitting on the floor.

For all his hard work in squandering opportunity after opportunity, Vinny Testaverde is awarded the golden raspberry, a WPA score of -87.1 percent, the 18th worst QB game of all time by this metric, and by far the worst ever achieved by a player who won the game.

A lot of this is circumstantial. For instance, the player right below Vinny on this list is Ryan Lindley for his -87.9 percent against the New York Jets in 2012. In that game, Ryan’s success rate was 11 percent.

Yes. Eleven.

Vinny was nowhere near that bad, but his bad plays all came in extremely big spots, mainly his countless failures to get that one more first down between the 50 and the 40 yard line that could’ve pushed the Jets into scoring range. In the end, all of this failure in key situations adds up to his contributions making the Carolina Panthers (and not the New York Jets) 87.1 percent more likely to win.

The New York Jets got over the 50 yard line 11 times, and scored six points on those 11 tries. That’s 0.55 points per offensive possession that got over the 50 yard line. Among games where an offence got over midfield at least four times, that’s not a number that’s ever been replicated. Not before or since, and I’m not sure it ever will be. It’s just so impossible to keep getting across the 50 yard line, but to continue to falter in the most important offensive spots. Most often, effective offence before the 50 yard line is still effective offence after the 50 yard line, but not for the New York Jets.

Putting all of this evidence together, I am fully prepared to say that, combining performance between the two teams, this is the worst quarterbacked game of the ;asy 25 years. I can’t say with certainty before then, but I’d be willing to put this game up against any other in the 100+ year history of the NFL. Chris Weinke is the heavy lifter here, but Vinny Testaverde pulls his share of the weight as well.

This awful QB play does not necessarily mean that it’s the worst team offensive performance ever, but the evidence I will present below will indicate that this game holds that title as well.

The Carolina Panthers generated -25.02 total EPA in this game. The New York Jets generated -26.26, meaning that on the whole, both offences combined to generate -51.28 total EPA. That is mind boggling. This is the only game that has ever gotten as bad as -50, and the teams didn’t even stop there. They blew straight into the -51 bracket.

For scale, in the 2023 season, there was a game between the Minnesota Vikings and Las Vegas Raiders that ended in a 3-0 score. Those two teams combined to generate just -39.6. That’s what we’re dealing with here. That’s how awful this Jets vs Panthers offensive performance truly was. Games with 3-0 scores cannot touch this. -25 total EPA is a good rule of thumb to denote a truly all-time bad offensive game, and this is the only game in the last 25 years where that infamous distinction falls upon both teams.

Both teams so consistently were given good positions by their opponent’s offensive ineptitude that if either team had even average offence (not good, just average) they would’ve scored 40 points. If both teams had generated zero EPA, this game would’ve ended 40-37 in favour of New York, without any good offence being played, such is the strength of the positions that the teams found themselves in.

Both these teams managed to take these fantastic offensive circumstances, and royally squander them, turning what mere competence could’ve seen as a 40-37 barnburner into a 13-12 snorefest through their incompetence.

The Carolina Panthers were slightly more incompetent on this day than the New York Jets, so they ended up being the ones to lose this football game, and the bottom would fall out from here. The 2001 Panthers would not win again, finishing the season 1-15, and netting themselves the second overall pick in the 2002 Draft.

The 2001 Panthers are the only time you can ever say ‘mission accomplished’ to a tanking team who achieved the second overall pick. I still don’t get this, but Carolina got what they wanted I guess.

Chris Weinke would never have a performance anywhere near this bad ever again, but nor would anybody else in NFL history, so that’s not surprising. He would never start a meaningful football game again after 2001, finding himself replaced by Rodney Peete once the Panthers no longer wanted to lose.

Somehow, this game would serve as a jumping off point for the New York Jets, as following this game they would go on a four game winning streak, cementing their place as a competent AFC playoff team in 2001, but Vinny Testaverde was not long for this world either. He comes out to start the 2002 season as one of the worst QBs in the NFL, and the Jets replace him with Chad Pennington, who goes on a magical run that I’ve discussed here before.

How this performance could somehow start a winning streak, I have no idea, but a win is a win, even in the worst offensive football game in NFL history. I don’t think there’s any NFL game in history that necessitates the phrase ‘a win is a win’ more than this one. If a game like this can become a jumping off point into a pretty good midseason run, any game can. It just has to be a win.

Perhaps we should keep that in mind moving forward.

Thanks so much for reading.